Course Descriptions(as of 15 February 2005)
The following course descriptions have been written by individual instructors
to provide more detailed information on specific section sthan that found
in the General Catalog. When individual descriptions are not available,
the General Catalog descriptions [in brackets] are used. (Although we try
to have as accurate and complete information as possible, this schedule
remains subject to change.)

Add Codes
English classes, 300-level and above, require instructor
permission for registration during Registration Period 3 (beginning
the first day of classes). If students have not registered for a class
prior to the first day, they should attend the first class meetings and/or
contact the instructor to obtain the necessary add codes.

First Week Attendance
Because of heavy demand for many English classes, students
who do not attend all reguarly-scheduled meetings during the first
week of the quarter may be dropped from their classes by the department.
If students are unable to attend at any point during the first week,
they should contact their instructors ahead of time. The Department requests
that instructors make reasonable accommodations for students with legitimate
reasons for being absent; HOWEVER, THE FINAL DECISION RESTS WITH
THE INSTRUCTOR AND SPACE IS NOT GUARANTEED FOR ABSENT STUDENTS EVEN IF
THEY
CONTACT THE INSTRUCTOR IN ADVANCE. (Instructors' phone numbers
and e-mail addresses can be obtained by calling the Main English Office,
(206) 543-2690 or the Undergraduate Advising Office, (206) 543-2634.)

Upper Division (400-level) creative
writing courses
Admission to 400-level creative writing courses is by
instructor permission. To receive an add code, prospective
students must fill out an information form available in the Creative
Writing office (B-25 PDL), present copies of their transcripts verifying
that they have taken the appropriate prerequisite classes, and turn
in a writing sample for instructor screening.

Senior Seminars
ENGL 497 (Honors Senior Seminar) and ENGL 498 (Senior
Seminar) are joint-listed courses; students choose which number
to sign up for depending on their individual status. ENGL 497 is
restricted to senior honors English majors taking the additional
senior seminar required for the departmental honors program. Add
codesfor ENGL 497are available in the English Advising
office, A-2B Padelford. All other senior English majors should
sign up for ENGL 498. Neither ENGL 497 nor ENGL 498 can be taken more
than once for credit.

466 A (Gay & Lesbian Studies)
TTh 12:30-2:20
Cummingsckate@u.washington.edu
During the quarter we will focus on the politics of "queer representation," paying particular attention to how gays, lesbian, bisexuals,
transgendered and/or other queer-identified subjects are represented, in
what contexts, by whom, at what points in time, and with what consequences.
Some of the representations we'll be looking at are drawn from mainstream
media and government documents; the majority are the work of self-identified
lesbian and gay fiction writers, performance artists, film and video-makers,
educators, columnists, and critics. Texts: Kenan, Let
the Dead Bury the Dead;
Linmark, Rolling the R’s;
Selvadurai, Funny Boy.

471 A (The Composition Process)
MW 1:30-3:20
Steve Browningsbrownin@u.washington.edu
[COnsideration of psychologicla and formal elements basic to writing and related
forms of nonverbal expression and the critical principles that apply to evaluation.]
Add codes in A-2B PDL.

483 A (Advanced Verse Writing)
Tues 3:30-6:20
McHughhmch@earthlink.net
This advanced workshop focuses only partly on student work; instructor will
provide numerous handouts. No textbook purchases required. Students will
be graded on quality of final portfolio (8 – 10 new poems), regularity
of attendance, assiduous attention to poems of others, and submission of
assignments and exercises. Admission requires instructor permission. Apply
via e-mail by the end of Registration Period 1 (March 6) to hmch@earthlink.net including
your name, student number, academic status and a writing sample of 5-7 poems.
Prerequisite: ENGL 384 and instructor permission (see above). Add codes
in Creative Writing office, B-25 PDL.

*arrange*
Supervised experience in local businesses and other agencies. Open only
to upper-division English majors. Credit/no credit only. Add codes available
in English Advising office, A-2B PDL.

492 A (Advanced Expository Writing Conference)

*arrange*
Tutorial arranged by prior mutual agreement between individual student
and instructor. Revision of manuscripts is emphasized, but new work may
also
be undertaken. Add codes available in English Advising office, A-2B PDL.

493 A (Advanced Creative Writing Conference)

*arrange*
Tutorial arranged by prior mutual agreement between individual student
and instructor. Revision of manuscripts is emphasized, but new work may
also
be undertaken. Add codes available in Creative Writing office, B-25 PDL.

497/8 A (Honors Senior Seminar/Senior Seminar)
MW 8:30-10:20
Frey
(W)cfrey@u.washington.eduClassics of Young Adult Literature. While fiction addressed to general readers
has often depicted adolescence, only in the past few decades has such fiction
addressed to young readers come into its own. With the publication of S.
E. Hinton’s The Outsiders, Paul Zindel’s The Pigman, Alice Childress’s
A Hero Ain’t Nothin’ but a Sandwich, and Robert Cormier’s
The Chocolate War in the late 1960s and early 1970s, Young Adult Literature
came of age as a serious forum for adolescent study of its own anxieties,
desires, conflicts, and joys. Since then, gifted writers such as Francesca
Lia Block, Sue Ellen Bridgers, Bruce Brooks, Paula Fox, Rosa Guy, Virginia
Hamilton, M. E. Kerr, Robert Lipsyte, Norma Fox Mazer, Walter Dean Myers,
Richard Peck, William Sleator, Cynthia Voigt and others have brilliantly
explored lives of contemporary youths. Works by such writers are taught in
many English Departments. They have been neglected in ours. This seminar
will introduce students to rewards of studying and teaching young adult literature.
Requirements: class attendance/participation, written answers to study questions,
small group presentations, research essay, and mid-term and final exams (short-answer
and essay questions). 497: Senior honors majors only (add codes: A-2B PDL);
498: Senior majors only. Text: Frey and Rollin, eds., Classics
of Young Adult Literature (includes Malaeska, Ragged Dick, Anne of Green
Gables, Seventeenth Summer,
The Outsiders, A Hero Ain’t Nothin’ but a Sandwich, The Chocolate
War, Forever, Homecoming, Hatchet, and Parrot in the Ove: Mi Vida).

497/8 B (Honors Senior Seminar/Senior Seminar)
MW 12:30-2:20
Reed
(W)bmreed@u.washington.eduTwenty-First Century Literature. What are authors up to these days?
Have current events – above all, September 11th and the war in Iraq – changed
what people read, write, and value? We will begin by reading recent work
by some of the most prominent authors of the late twentieth century – among
them John Ashbery, Jorie Graham, and Toni Morrison – in order to see
whether the “old guard” has been successful at adapting the postmodern
aesthetics of the 1980s and 90s to suit the needs and dreams of a new century.
Subsequently, we will be reading a variety of ambitious, innovative, celebrated
texts from the last five years, including fiction (Chabon, Danielewski);
poetry (Mullen, Young); nonfiction (Vollman); drama (Parks); and less classifiable,
trans- or intergeneric writing (Bök, Carson). Texts: Christian
Bök,
Eunola; Anne Carson, The Beauty of the Husband: A Fictional
Essay in 29 Tangos;
Michael Chabon, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay; Mark
Z. Danielewski, House of Leaves; Toni Morrison, Love; Harryette
Mullen, Sleeping
with the
Dictionary; Suzan-Lori Parks, Topdog / Underdog; Wiliam T.
Vollman, Rising Up and Rising Down; Kevin Young, To Repel Ghosts:
Five Sides in B Minor.

497/8 C (Honors Senior Seminar/Senior Seminar)
MW 1:30-3:20
Vaughan
(W)miceal@u.washington.eduMedieval Legends of Good Women. At the end of the fourteenth century,
the English poet Geoffrey Chaucer produced, among his last works, a collection
of narratives he called “Seintes Legende of Cupide,” (i.e., “The
Legends of Cupid’s Saints: Introduction to the Man of Law’s Tale").
Alternatively titled The Legend of Good Women, the collection contains
stories about a dozen ancient women (and their men), e.g., Cleopatra, Dido,
Thisbe,
Medea, to mention a few. A close reading of the Legend reveals how Chaucer’s
late-medieval narratives about these classical heroines have been influenced
by genres like the Christian saint’s life and the traditions of so-called “courtly
love,” The tensions between the ideals of Christian hagiography and
courtly romance lend a lively complexity to his stories, and to their interpretation.
This course will attempt to define these competing ideals by discussing literary
examples from ancient times – in the Old Testament (e.g., the books
of Ruth, Judith, and Esther) and Ovid’s Heroides -- through
the Middle ages, with its rich range of saints lives, retellings of Ovid,
and classic
works like the Romance of the Rose, Dante’s Vita Nuova,
and Boccaccio’s
Famous Women. After Chaucer’s Legend (and some of his other
works), we will discuss his near-contemporary, Christine de Pizan, esp. her Book
of the City of Ladies, and conclude with a discussion of the mid-fifteenth-century
Legends of Hooly Wommen by the English Augustinian friar Osbern
Bokenham.
Requirements for the course will include active participation
in seminar discussions, weekly short writing contributions (response papers),
individual
leading of seminar discussion on at least one text, and a substantial term
paper. (Meets with ENGL 516A) Texts: Ovid, Heroides (tr.
Isbell); Guillaume de Lorris, Jean de Meun, Romance of the Rose (tr.
Horgan); Dante Alighieri,
Vita Nuova (tr. Musa); Cazelles, The Lady as Saint; Chaucer, Love
Visions (tr. Stone); Christine de Pizan, Book of the City of
Ladies; Osbern Bokenham,
A Legend of Holy Women (tr. Delany); Boccaccio, Famous Women (tr. Brown).

497/8 D (Honors Senior Seminar/Senior Seminar)
MW 2:30-4:20
Wooley
(W)cwooley@u.washington.eduSentimental America. What is the relationship among literature, feeling, and
social change? In this course, we will develop an understanding of how nineteenth-century
American writers used sentimental narratives to address particular sociopolitical
issues. We will look at novels that attempt to criticize the nation by challenging
representations of “other”; subjects and government policies based
on unjust laws. As a class, we will examine the success of these criticisms
and their reliance on the sympathy they produce in their readers. Throughout,
we will pay close attention to the ways that these writers engage the relationship
between individual actions and political change. We will also read a number
of literary critics (including Jane Tompkins, Ann Douglas, Lauren Berlant,
Laura Wexler, and Glenn Hendler) who are similarly engaged with this relationship
between feelings produced by literature and the possibility of actions that
promote social justice. We will then use this work on the sentimental literature
of the nineteenth century to develop individual projects on how sentimental
narratives remain a potent cultural form in the twentieth and early twenty-first
centuries.

Our study of nineteenth-century American sentimental narratives will include
novels such as Charlotte Temple, Hope Leslie, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Little
Women and Iola Leroy. At times the reading load will be heavy. Students should
expect to write a number of response papers, to lead discussion, and to make
an in-class presentation on their final paper topic. If you have any questions
about the structure of the class, please feel free to email the instructor
at cwooley@u.washington.edu

497/8 F (Honors Senior Seminar/Senior Seminar)
TTh 9:30-11:20
Harkins
(W)gharkins@u.washington.eduCommon Sense: Desire and Domination in Contemporary U.S. Fiction. In
this course we will explore the notion of “common sense” as it
shapes contemporary U.S. fiction. We will begin by asking how popular discourses
about the United States often assume that common sense is simple, immediate,
and shared across a broad field of social groups. To contest these recent
efforts to produce a shared ethos of national belonging, this course will
provide a brief genealogy of common sense as a physical, intellectual, and
emotional repository of broader political, social and economic forces. We
will read key Marxist, feminist, queer, anti-racist, and psychoanalytic critics
to examine the development and critique of common sense as a key component
of modern nationalism. Following this opening discussion, we will read a
series of novels and short fiction that offer alternate accounts of common
sense, exploring the relation between desire and domination in fictions of
national belonging. Texts: Michel Foucault, The History
of Sexuality, Vol.
1; Raymond Williams, Marxism and Literature; Junot Diaz, Drown; Jessica Hagedorn,
Dogeaters; Gayl Jones, Corredgidora; Franz Kafka, The
Trial; Nella Larsen,
Quicksand.

497/8 G (Honors Senior Seminar/Senior Seminar)
TTh 10:30-12:20
Chaudhary
(W)zahidc@u.washington.eduViolence and the Modern: Postcolonial Literature and Theory. This
course takes up the question of violence as a way to explore a genealogy
of our present
moment. From an understanding of violence as an institutional form, we will
branch out to consider its emancipatory and irrational forms across the postcolonial
landscapes of South Asia, Africa, and the Middle East. How does violence bind
and break apart communities? What is the relation between violence and the
founding of a nation? How do various forms of violence legitimize themselves?
We will consider these questions within the broader themes of the translation,
identity formation, national consciousness, sexuality an dhistorical narration.
Texts will include essays by Benjamin, Fanon, Marx, Said, Spivak, Zizek, and
fiction by Coetzee, Djebar, Gordimer, Rushdie, Sembene, Salih, and Shammas.
Students will prepare one class presentation, a short paper (4 pp.), and a
research paper (7 pp.). Some background in literary theory is recommended,
but not required. Texts: Assia Djebar, Women of Algiers
in Their Apartment; Salman Rushdie, The Moor’s Last Sigh;
J. M. Coetzee, Waiting for the Barbarians; Frantz Fanon, The Wretched
of the Earth; Nadine Gordimer, Burger’s Daughter; Tayeb
Salih, Season of Migration to the North; Anton Shammas, Arabesques;
Wole Soyinka, Death and the King’s Horseman; photocopied course
packet (from Ave Copy Center).

497/8 H (Honors Senior Seminar/Senior Seminar)
TTh 11:30-1:20
Haugen
(W)klhaugen@u.washington.eduCelebrity Biography: The Early Years. Do we care about the real
lives of famous authors? In the case of the poet and critic Samuel Johnson,
some clearly
do: the monumental and surprising Life of Johnson (1791) by James
Boswell, is probably more widely read now than anything Johnson ever wrote
himself.
In this seminar, we’ll ask how personal reputation became such a powerful
category in the eighteenth century – a question directly relevant to
the study of literature today, because Johnson and his contemporaries were
instrumental in identifying the privileged group of English poets we still
think of as “the canon.” We’ll read the Life of Johnson in
its astounding totality, alongside the works of other writers Johnson read
or knew, including Alexander Pope, Mary Wortley Montagu, Thomas Gray,
and Frances Burney. We’ll also glance at Samuel Johnson’s own
work in establishing the English literary canon, such as his Lives of
the Poets, his dictionary of English, and his edition of Shakespeare’s
plays. Texts: James Boswell, The Life of Johnson (ed.
Chapman); David Fairer & Christine
Gerrard, eds., Eighteenth-Century Poetry: An Annotated Anthology,
2nd ed.; Samuel Johnson, The Major Works, ed. Greene; optional: John
Sitter, ed.,
The Cambridge Companion to Eighteenth-Century Poetry.

497/8 J (Honors Senior Seminar/Senior Seminar)
TTh 1:30-3:20
Falsberg
(W)falsberg@u.washington.edu 1200 B.C.E. to D.D.T.: Literary Commentaries on
Environmental Degradation and Repair. Taking a cross-periods approach, this
seminar’s
focus is human-induced environmental degradation as portrayed in substantial
and engaging
literary works: two epics, one Near Eastern, the other, Central Asian; a
Chinese Taoist “classic”; two Platonic dialogues viewed as sources
for the enduring “Atlantis” myth; romantic poetry that may proffer
a form of urban renewal; and three contemporary American works sympathetic
to environmental protection. Aims are more empirical than theoretical, and
we will read each text with an eye towards specific instances of damage to
the earth. That said, secondary readings bring important questions to our
work on the primary texts. Investigations may include: tensions in epic material
between conquest and the consumption of resources (trees, local monsters,
and the land itself); controversy as to whether strands in Taoist philosophy
can be allied with “environmentalism”; and the presence of lyricism
in a work whose matter is largely scientific.

Discussion will be lively, demanding rigorous preparation, and students
should bring relevant secondary materials to the attention of the seminar.
Class work includes two shorter essays, one focused on a single text, the
other, a meditation on a philosophical or methodological quandary identified
in class discussion. The final project is a ten-page review of the secondary
literature. This last is expected to demonstrate a hermeneutic competence
developed through taking on the primary readings, and will serve as an excellent
preparation for graduate school, or for jobs involving reading, research
and writing. Texts:Gilgamesh (tr. Gardner); Tao
Te Ching (tr. Mitchell);
Plato, Critias and Timaeus; Gesar of Ling (tr. Neel); William Blake, Songs
of Experience,
Milton, Jerusalem; Aldo Leopold, A Sand County Almanac; Rachel Carson, Silent
Spring; Terry Tempest Williams, Refuge: An Unnatural History of Family and
Place.

497/8 U (Honors Senior Seminar/Senior Seminar)
MW 4:30-6:20
Popov
(W)popov@u.washington.eduComedy. This seminar will explore the genre of comedy from classical through
modern times. The main objectives are (1) to read at least ten representative
comedies (where possible we’ll also see taped performances of the respective
plays); (2) to develop a critical understanding of the esthetics of major writers
such as Aristophanes, Shakespeare, Moliere, and Beckett; (3) to develop an
overall sense of the tradition and cultural contexts of comedy, how comedy
has changed over time and which features have remained constant. Specific topics
include: the forms and features of “high” and “low” comedy;
the conventions and techniques of romantic and satirical comedy; the types
and functions of laughter in comedy; the role of music in comedy and the specificity
of musical comedy. Requirements: there will be a number of small assignments
and presentations on individual authors (40% of the final grade); each seminar
participant will work on a research project resulting in a final paper on a
major author, period, or genre (60% of the final grade). Please note in order
to come up with a good research project and have enough time for its execution
it is essential that you read at least three or four of the comedies on the
reading list before the beginning of the quarter. Texts: Aristophanes, The
Frogs; Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night’s Dream; Moliere, Tartuffe; Gay,
The Beggar’s Opera; Sheridan, The School for Scandal; Beaumarchais, The
Marriages of Figaro; Gilbert and Sullivan, The Mikado; Wilde, The
Ideal Husband;
Synge, The Playboy of the Western World; Beckett, Happy Days.